The Looming Default Crisis: Are Conservatives Also at Fault?

As Pete Wehner points out, there is a reason that liberal Democrats are putting this out now: they want to claim Reagan as their own, and argue that contemporary conservatives are betrayers of his trust and would view Reagan as their enemy were he alive today. At the time, of course, liberals and Democrats despised Ronald Reagan. As Wehner argues, "(a) Barack Obama, when he was in the Senate, voted against raising the debt ceiling, thereby undermining his moral authority on the subject and considerably diluting the effectiveness of his sanctimonious sermons; and (b) the president could avert default by embracing the plan passed by the House earlier this week.

Nevertheless, what Reagan said in 1987 still holds true today. Default would be an outcome that no one who wants a strong America should be happy about. The latest story in today’s paper makes it clear that Speaker Boehner understands this, and is working on a new deficit reduction plan that would cut $3 to $4 trillion in spending over a ten year period.

Let us hope that he succeeds in getting a deal accepted and that come Monday, financial markets do not face a sudden downturn that could throw a monkey wrench into an already weakened world economy. This is precisely, a cynic may say, what our president wants, since he could commence to blame the crisis totally on the Republicans. So is it not foolish for Republicans to give President Obama precisely what he wants, enabling him to escape his own responsibility for the crisis?